I woke up with the left side of my face swollen, looking like a lopsided chipmunk or something! I think it was an allergic reaction to the Jack fruit we had tried the day before.
We boarded a bus and eight hours later we had arrived at Phnom Penh. We stayed at Velkommen Guesthouse - great location, right next to the river front. We decided to find our bearings, and found a noodle restaurant for lunch, both eating a red chicken curry noodle soup (delicious!). The change in pace and number of people had dramatically increased compared to Battambang, so we didn't fancy staying here too long.
In the evening we took a stroll along the river front, being pestered by the many restaurants and bars to enter theirs, but deciding on a rooftop bar for a drink and some street food for dinner.

Thursday, we hired a Tuk tuk to take us out to the Choeung ek Genocidal Center, aka the Killing Fields. We had a two hour audio tour around this fairly small plot of land, which has seen some of the worst atrocities. It was interesting but of course extremely heart wrenching and unbelievably shocking to hear what went on during the Khmer Rouge era. Pol Pot, the leader, with his distorted views inflicted mass genocide on the Cambodian people, with the intention of creating what he thought was an equal society. He started by evacuating the cities, telling them the Amercian's were going to bomb them. One minute they are going about their ordinary lives, the next they are walking for days, only carrying the bare essentials. The Communist Khmer Rouge party told the city dwellers they could return within 3 days, but a lot knew this was unlikely and that the story was fabricated. After days of walking, the ones that survived arrived in the countryside to be forced into ruthless manual labour. Underfed and overworked thousands died, others were killed for having an education, or for even just having glasses. Monks were killed and temples were destroyed, to ensure all devotion was to the Khmer Rouge. By the end of the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979), an estimated 2 million Cambodians were killed, about 1/4 of the population.
Our next stop was to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S:21). This was an old school used as a make shift prison to hold and torture people before they were perhaps sent to the killing fields. These people had rarely done anything wrong but were beaten into admitting and writing fake admissions to treason against the Khmer Rouge. Classrooms were filled with cells, some made out of bricks and mortar, others wood - you can still see some blood on the floor.
I think it was important that we visited these places as we learnt a lot about this horrific era in Cambodian history, which neither of us knew anything about.
The final stop for our Tuk tuk driver was the Central Market. We found a food stall and had noodle soup for lunch then wandered around the many clothes/shoes/souvineer/electrical stalls. One of the final things we wanted to see in Phnom Penh was Wat Phnom, a temple built on the only hill in the city. Expecting a huge hill overlooking the city, we were a little disappointed to find just a small hill, with an average looking temple at the top, and no view at all! It did however allow us to find the night market, which we later made our way back to for dinner in the evening, and ate more street food.

Friday morning, we had set our alarms for 6am to catch our next bus out of the city, but unfortunately I had been up all night very ill and had to go and find a doctor. When you have money you get quick results, and within two hours I had had tests and been sent away with medication to treat an amoebiasis (an intestinal parasite, quite common thankfully). So unfortunately we were stuck in Phnom Penh for another day and night at least.
Chris was amazing and had the task of finding us a room for the night, rebooking our bus and next accommodation, and did the best job at looking after me.
We spent the day cafe and restaurant hopping along the river front. We treated ourselves to some western food for dinner, going to an American place doing all meals for $5. Chris was craving a burger, and I wanted to eat something a little more exciting than boiled rice and veg.

Having had a much better night we did manage to make it onto the bus out of Phnom Penh and headed to Banlung....to the jungle...